Grace, MIA in the "Repentance Message?"

It seems my original post required 3D glasses to read, hopefully I have corrected the problem? And more will be inclined to respond.IS GRACE, MISSING IN ACTION IN THE REPENTANCE MESSAGE?Carefully consider the brief exert below from the Printed Message: "What Happens To The Church When Preachers No Longer Preach Against Sin" dated 1/17/05 by David Wilkerson."Many young ministers have asked me similar questions: "How can I deal with sin in my congregation? So many couples are divorcing, and others are living in adultery. I know I have a responsibility to preach God's holiness to them. But I don't want to drive anyone out of the church, either." My answer to these young preachers is always the same: "your congregation will listen to anything you have to say, if you say it through tears. You can't beat them over the head with your message. They have to know your heart is broken. Try to bring them to repentance by preaching God's GRACE. Yes, his Word is a two-edged sword. But you have to wield it wearing velvet gloves." Of course, this isn't the attitude of every preacher. I regularly receive letters from Christians who say, "You have to hear Reverend So-and-so preach. He comes down hard on sin." Yet, much of the time, these preachers' sermon tapes are nothing but angry tirades against outward things. Their messages rarely include God's mercy or GRACE. Instead, they lay heavy burdens on their sheep, yet never lift a finger to relieve them."I pray earnestly, God let me get it now, let me see it now, let me understand it now, Your Grace. Not when I'm 70+ years of age, as is Rev. Wilkerson, and then the scales as it were, to fall from my eyes.I believe God demands that we Minister the full council of God, which always is a balanced message that will quicken the hearts of the hearer.Your thoughts?In Christ,tony

my, my, my....I do agree. I don't have time to put down everything I think about this. I will try to put down what comes to mind first.I am one who likes to be convicted. God convicts me pretty regularly- i don't know about anybody else. But I am glad for it. I like to be convicted if I listen to a message as well. We should all be willing to grow and change into Christlikeness.I believe that if people are taught and have the fear of the Lord- you won't have to do alot of hard preaching. Hopefully the Holy Spirit is doing that already in their lives. A holy fear balanced with his amazing grace which we do not deserve.I still believe that Jesus was the ultimate preacher and prophet. I think it is best to model ourselves after Him. To let Him become more of Himself in us- so that we decrease. It is best to focus on this. Christians in general (pastors included) should have their focus on Jesus and point to Jesus with their message and their life. You can't go wrong with this.Here is a snippet today fro Oswald Chambers about Paul's preaching:Paul said that he was gripped by the love of God and that was why he acted like he did. There was only one thing he lived for- to persuade people of the coming judgement of God AND to tell them of the "love of Christ". This total surrender to "the love of Christ" is the only thing that will bear fruit in your life. And it will always leave the mark of God's holiness and his power, never drawing attention to your personal holiness.-O. Chambers Feb.4

Hi Bro. Tony,IS GRACE, MISSING IN ACTION IN THE REPENTANCE MESSAGE?It has better not be or we will preach people into hell without showing them a way out. We will neither serve Christ or the Gospel. We need to remember there are people at different stages of growth. Leonard Ravenhill talks about this in relation to a young Keith Green. He wanted people to jump up on his level and they were just not there yet. To that I only have one thing to say, lend them a hand and pull them up! That is what grace will do. The word of God is the sword of the Spirit not a machete. We need to remember this! I need to remember this!God Bless,-Robert

You can't beat them over the head with your message. They have to know your heart is broken.That's it! I have to learn this. I experience God's tremendous love in my own life and I see God working in the lives of other beloved brothers and sisters...but when I see my Church sleeping and all of those "go-with-the-world"-Christians, who are a stumbling block to the real Christ and a roadblock to Heaven for many non-Christians, I have the tendency to share tough messages...and yes they go with tears at times, but I want to share Gods grace and help with those people also...and well...maybe I want, but I have nothing to say..God drives!And I think Chanin gave the best advice: Look at Jesus. When we start to reason and say: "Well, I have preached about hell two times now, it's time to preach about Heaven this time", we will fail dramatically. We have to seek God in all this. We shouldn't preach to please the crowd, we should preach to please God. We shouldn't preach about what people want to hear, we should preach about what people need to hear. Most important in all this, I think, is that we stick close to Jesus in our own lives, so that we are able to preach from the heart to the heart. I have to think about the feeding of the 5000:Jesus says: You give them something to eat...they have to admit that they don't have much: Five - and two fish.Jesus directs them to have all the people sit down...And when he had taken the five loaves and the two fishes, he looked up to heaven, and blessed, and brake the loaves, and gave them to his disciples to set before them; and the two fishes divided he among them all. And they did all eat, and were filled.Before we can offer people the word of God, we need to get it from God personally. And Gods word is never meant for our Church in the first place...it always points at us first. If lips and lives don't agree, our testimony won't amount much. Charles Spurgeon said:"The preacher who neglects to preach to himself has forgotten a very important part of his audience. We must first address our own soul. If we can move that by the words we may utter, we may hope to have some power with the souls of others."In Christ,Paul

The sword of the Word always cuts deep, but after it has cut it must heal or it hasn't done it's job. Our responsiblity is to preach sin as excedingly sinful, but then Grace as more than sufficient. Leave out grace and you'll make a legalist, leave out sin and you'll give them a license. Preach both and God will raise up Christians.

Leave out grace and you'll make a legalist, leave out sin and you'll give them a license. Preach both and God will raise up Christians.Perfectly stated. :-)

And let us remember of a truth:"You can shear sheep many times, you can skin them only once"God Bless,tony